Creep of the Week - September 13, 1997

Image: Matthew Brackney Image: Michael Sanders

Arizona Bounty Hunters
"Bounty - The Quicker Picker Upper"
Update - September 20, 1997 - The prosecutors in this case have determined that these guys were not actually bounty hunters but just common burglars using the hunter story as a cover. That makes the piece below a bit out of date, but the comments about bounty hunting still hold, and the perpetrators are without doubt still Creeps.
We've heard a lot recently (some of it here) about out-of-control, sadistic cops who are more interested in beating up people than they are in policing, like the plunger-impaling officers of Brooklyn, New York. Those are guys who should never have received badges. But consider this scary thought: They were good enough to pass whatever tests are necessary to become a policeman. There are actually other guys who aren't good enough. What becomes of cop candidates so dense or emotionally defective that they are actually rejected by police departments? Some of them show up years later as hotel security assistants who double as high-speed chauffeurs, preparing for their work assignments by downing cocktails of Port and Prozac. Others become bounty hunters.

Last week in Phoenix, five bounty hunting yahoos showed up at Christopher Foote's house at 4 AM, dressed in ski masks and body armor. Matthew Brackney (pictured above, left), Michael Sanders (right), Matthew's father David, Brian Robbins and Ronald Timms kicked in the front door, grabbed Luisa Sharrah, who lived in the house, beat her with a gun, tied her up with white cords and held her and her three children at gunpoint. Christopher, the home owner who was in a different bedroom, did what any normal person would do when faced with five wild and crazy guys wreaking havoc on his homestead: he started shooting the bastards. He managed to get a couple of them in the arms and legs before the bounty hunters, in the Name of the Law, killed him and his girlfriend, Spring Wright. There were at least 29 bullet holes in their bedroom.

Two dead, one bound and gagged, a few children terrorized - unfortunate, but that's what Christopher gets for jumping bond, right? Whoops, wrong guy! The bounty hunters were hunting Victor Rodriques Alcantar, who skipped out on a $25,000 bail bond for drunk driving five years ago in California. Victor was not in the house, had no connections with anyone there, and as far as anyone can tell, has never been in Arizona. The five errant hunters are now charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault and unlawful imprisonment.

How did a thing like this happen? How could five such idiotic wankers get licenses to become bounty hunters anyway? I mean, look at those guys - would you even hire them to clean outhouses in the park? Who gave them such an important lawful responsibility? Well, kids, welcome to the Wild Wild West of the 1990's. No one had to give them any responsibility, license, court order, training or even a body cavity check. Anyone, regardless of background or intelligence level can declare himself (or herself) to be a bounty hunter, arm himself to the gills, break down doors and use whatever force necessary to subdue his quarry and carry it away to justice. No police involvement necessary. We're talking about police rejects here, remember?

Michael Sanders, the really ugly one pictured on the right, was previously convicted on bounty hunting-related weapons charges in Texas and Tucson. The Tucson prosecutor at the time said, "This guy seems like he watches too many Rambo movies, judge ... He's just a cowboy out here, and he's going to continue to be in love with guns, and he's going to shoot somebody some day."

We should put Michael and his pals in jail cells with the New York toilet plunger cops. They could spend their years of incarceration discussing how to combine their respective techniques of dealing with dangerous criminals. A meeting of the small minds, so to speak. The Old West meets Modern Metropolis. Corrupt Real Cops meet Incompetent Wannabee Cops. Watch out for the 21st Century Police Units who break down your door looking for stopped-up toilets to plunge. Maybe they can get a drunk and drugged hotel security assistant to drive.

Let me know what you think at montgome@servtech.com

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